Our Religious Brains

Neil Gillman was born in Quebec City, Canada on September 11, 1933. He studied philosophy and French literature at McGill University in Montreal. He studied at the Jewish Theological Seminary in Manhattan and was ordained as a rabbi in 1960. He received a doctorate in philosophy from Columbia University in 1975. He was a professor of Jewish philosophy at the Jewish Theological Seminary for 46 years and dean of its rabbinical school for 10 years.

He gave aspiring rabbis and congregants in the Conservative movement new ways to talk about God, death, and the afterlife. He was also an important advocate for the movement's ordination of women and gays. He wrote several books including The Death of Death: Resurrection and Immortality in Jewish Thought and Sacred Fragments: Recovering Theology for the Modern Jew, which won the National Jewish Book Award for Jewish thought. He died from cancer on November 24, 2017 at the age of 84.

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